Second Chances
by FinalArc
Summary: With gods and aliens going to war all around them, it seems incongruous that Nightwing would die by hitting his head on a rock. But that's the sad reality of life, and Tim has to deal with it. Damian really should have aimed for those sticky-outy bits. (Injustice: Gods Among Us series)


**Continuity note: This story draws from the comic series "Injustice: Gods Among Us"**

* * *

"I hope you're not here to kill me," the voice of Tim Drake echoes off the dark walls of the modest apartment. Damian stays in the shadows and doesn't flinch. He refuses to. "Jason will be ticked if you don't leave any brothers for him."

_That's not very sporting, Damian._

"That's not why I'm here," Damian says quietly. He wants to sound tough, but can't quiet manage it. Not that surprising, as his eyes haven't stopped crying rivers since Nightwing went down.

_What did you do wrong? Get ready, we'll go again._

Drake finds Damian in the shadows and leans right into his face. "Good," he says with a hiss, and it's then that Damian realizes Drake is prepared to fight him right there in the apartment, even while wearing a ratty T-shirt and sweatpants and seeming completely helpless. Drake's never been helpless, though that doesn't guarantee that he'd win a battle with Damian. Dick wasn't helpless, either.

But it's not like Drake doesn't have reason to keep his guard up. A betting person would have offered up a fortune that Tim would be the first to go. "So you're here to talk. I put a kettle on. I don't have anything as good as Alfred's stuff, but it'll do." Damian hears the whistling of the kettle, the hum of the fridge, the sounds of the calm streets below. It all seems so domestic.

_There's something... _sick_ in your city._

"I don't need to talk."

"Then why are you here?" Drake flicks a switch on the wall and the entire room floods with light. It's too much for Damian.

_Damian, you're thirteen years old. How are you the darkest thing in the cave?_

"Turn that off, Drake!"

"No." The light exposes Damian for what he is, a little boy crying in the dark shadows. It makes everything clear, visible and undeniable, the expression on Drake's face most of all. "Why? Do you have something to hide?"

Not anymore. Everyone in the Justice League knows what he's done by now. And the weird thing is, no one's done anything about it. Robin just killed Nightwing with his own two hands, and the only one who's stopped to lecture is Tim. "I don't have any secrets."

_You see these? Each scar is a life. You have a scar now, too._

Drake just laughs. He takes the kettle off the stove and sets it on a table with mugs and sugar. Instant tea bags. Alfred wouldn't approve, but it's probably all Drake can afford on his budget. Still, the scent is pleasant and comforting, and Drake looks surprisingly less contemptuous than one would think when he gestures to an empty chair at the small table. Damian doesn't join him, preferring to stay in his shadowy corner. "You know, I used to be an only child. So did Dick. We used to laugh about that." It's hard for Damian to picture. Grayson has always been there, as if his role was created for Damian and did not exist or animate until the younger boy walked into the manor.

_Did you like it? Did you feel the release?_

And once that role was rejected, it would never exist again. "My big brother, who I love, died in Arkham, with gods and aliens too caught up in their war to notice he fell. Because my little brother, who I love in spite of myself, decided he had to make other people hurt in order to feel good about his choices. And that dumb little brother is still helping the people who think killing is going to solve all our problems." Drake fixes him with a glare. "So, what was that about not wanting to talk?"

_I'm fine! I had it under control!_

Damian still can't stop crying. Even though the world is in such turmoil that one man's accidental death won't even make headlines. "There is a bigger situation at work."

"Oh, is there?" Drake drops into a chair with a sneer. "Bigger than Dead Robin Number 3? Bigger than Superman fighting so indiscriminately that his biggest fanboy can be murdered by his own teammate and he doesn't even blink?" This time, Damian can't stop from flinching. He's not a murderer.

He's not. "Superman is doing good. Criminals deserve punishment, not compassion."

_Have you considered for a single second that you might be wrong? You self-righteous, arrogant-_

"Was Dick a criminal?" Damian just wants to sink into a hole. "Oh, but he stood against Superman. That makes him an acceptable loss, doesn't it?"

"No." _They're exactly where you said they'd be._

_Yep. Standing with the monsters._

"Tell me, Damian, when you're done purging the world of criminals, what's going to be done with you?" Criminal, murderer, killer. This is how Batman views him. How his father views him. But it was an accident. He didn't mean for this to happen.

_But it's just the two of them. They shouldn't give us any trouble._

"He wasn't supposed to die..."

"Sure. Dick tried to keep people from dying, right? Protect Batman from the League. Protect the League from Batman. Protect the heroes from the criminals and the criminals from the heroes until we could settle this like rational adults. Even tried to protect you, didn't he?" To the last. Nightwing was a hero.

_Okay. That's enough. Everyone._

And Damian killed him like he was just another piece of scum in Arkham. "If he wouldn't help you, he was against you? He didn't support Superman's mission, so you killed him?"

_Let's just calm down. We don't want to look bad in front of the psychopaths._

"That's not how it happened," Damian pleads, hating how tiny he sounds. "It was an accident. He always..." Dodged. Always saw the blow coming, until the one time he didn't. Damian tried to explain to his father, but the man would hear none of it. As far as Bruce is concerned, his son is dead, and he has no others. Funny, how Damian told Grayson and Drake his bloodline made him the only true son, the one his father really loved.

_You... What did you do? _

It's ironic, but either way, Timothy Drake still stands in this kitchen and no one's paid him a shred of attention since the whole mess went down.

_Have you consoled them? Have you held them? Your parents died and left you, Bruce. What's your excuse for not being a father?_

"This wasn't supposed to happen..."

"You threw an escrima stick at his head. What did you think was going to happen?" Damian can't answer. He's scared to think and find out.

_You keep aiming for that killer blow, you're trying to _hurt_ me._

"What, did you forget how bones work? Spines? Head trauma? We've been lucky so many times, did you think he'd just have some of Alfred's cocoa and recover?"

_Which I'm trying not to take personally, by the way._

Damian wants to put his head in his hands and slide down the wall in a heap of sobs. He wants Grayson to swoop to his side and comfort him, reassure him that they can make this right, he can be forgiven. But Grayson isn't there to hold his hand and guide him through the morality and atonement that Damian doesn't understand. So Damian doesn't deserve to seek after forgiveness.

_One of these madmen permanently scarred this world._

But he can't stop crying.

_Some criminals deserve a second chance. Second chances are a lot harder with a severe brain injury._

Tim watches him for a spell, sipping tea while the cold look on his face slowly thaws. Finally, he speaks. "You know Shazam is a 12 year old, right? Just a kid. Like you."

"What's your point?"

"He's got mystic wizard powers, basically a god among humans. Except, when he goes home at night, he says a magic word and he's just a little kid again. A little kid who needs to ask for money and rides across town, who needs help lifting a heavy box." Damian raises an eyebrow, not fully understanding.

"Again, what's your point?"

"Is there a difference for you, when you take off that mask? Do you feel the exact moment where you stop being a god and turn back into a little boy?" The words sound cruel to Damian, even if they weren't meant that way. His mother raised him to believe he was entitled and superior, and Grayson and his father raised him to believe he was no more or less than others. Damian's reality is still caught in between.

_Robin doesn't beat people once they're down._

"That's not what I think."

"Then what were you thinking?"

_Stop telling me what to do!_

Again, he can't answer, and Drake becomes frustrated. "Look around you, Damian! This is what the world really is! It's not gods and aliens fighting wars for the fate of the planet, it's people crying in dark kitchens! You got wrapped up in the glory and the ideals, and forgot that we aren't invulnerable, and there's no cosmic karma to back us up." He rises from his chair a little, and Damian feels himself shrink. "We're just ordinary people who hurt and feel and bleed! Regular humans with brothers who piss us off and who get hurt when you throw things at them!"

_I knew it was coming. He tries it all the time._

Ordinary people, who trip and fall, who get stunned when struck in the head with a kill shot, whose necks break when hit by an unmovable force.

_Which I'm trying not to take personally, by the way._

Drake sits back in his chair, slightly calmer but no less grave. "We have to bury our big brother now. Metropolis is full of people doing that. Harley's grieving for the Joker. Thanks to Superman and Wonder Woman, there's a lot more people crying, and Atlantis is scared out of it's mind."

Damian can't help but defend Superman. The side he's chosen to stand with. A world with no injustice. "So your saying it's not worth it? Taking the Joker off the streets? Ending wars, neutralizing criminals, it's not worth it because somebody_ grieves?"_ Drake shakes his head.

"I'm saying your actions have consequences. Every last one of them." A world with no injustice. Except for the hero with a broken neck who just wanted to get through the conflict without any casualties. "This one, I'm not so sure you'll be able to live with."

_We're fine. Robin was in control the whole time._

And that's what scares Damian. What if he can't live with it, and this pain that seizes his soul haunts him all his life? What if his doubts and questions hinder his every move, what if his grief plagues every thought and dream as vividly as it does now? What if he can't live with the memory of his brother dying at his own hands?

Or, even scarier, what if he _can?_

_It always starts with one._

Damian wonders why he came. Drake stares into his tea. "Do you regret it?" the older boy asks.

Every second. Every time Robin closes his eyes.

"Of course I regret it."

Drake grimaces, then fixes him with a cruel look.

"Well,_ too bad."_

_Second chances are harder with a severe brain injury._

"Dick is dead. If you thought you'd make him see reason, join your side, you can't anymore. He doesn't get any second chances. But hey, he stood with the criminals, so maybe he deserved that."

_You're as bad as him! Superman is right. They don't deserve our protection._

"I know..." Damian whispers. "He tried to tell me that, but..." But what? Damian still doesn't think Grayson was right. The Joker deserved to die. That boy in Australia opposed Superman, and deserved his retribution.

_They also may have had some bad circumstances that led them to a point where you're fighting them. _

And Grayson... "There was this moment, where everything just stopped," Drake says with hallowed remembrance. "Nobody talked about all the crazy things going on in the world and whatever parts we had to play in them. The shock shut us all up, the grief. Just for a second." The boy smiles to himself, the only smile Damian has seen since Grayson... "Because Nightwing, you know, hurt him and everybody loses a piece of their soul. And I thought maybe this would fix everything. Because Dick Grayson, the guy who can single-handedly unite the justice league and calm down even the tensest situations, that's a loss you have to acknowledge."

_Everyone. Let's just calm down._

Even the prisoners at Arkahm bowed their heads, Damian remembers, when Batman carried out his son. Harley shrieked and sobbed over the intercom. Even the worst of humanity had a moment of remorse at the death of Nightwing. "Everyone knows him, loves him, relies on him to be their little morality pet. If this conflict spills his blood on the ground, then all of us have to stop and question just what it is we stand for. Realize that this path is going to have a whole cemetery full of innocents and heroes, and maybe those consequences are a stacking up a little too high." Drake's fingers grip his ceramic mug with unnatural force, Damian is surprised it doesn't crack.

_One death. To save millions._

That smile of Drake's is long gone. "But I was wrong. Just a few seconds to mourn, and then you all went back to fighting each other. There's not even going to be a funeral, because no one can pull back for five minutes to acknowledge the loss. Dick is dead, and his friends can't stop killing long enough to put him in the ground." He slams the mug onto the table and stands up, restless and furious.

_What am I doing? I'm bringing criminals to justice. I'm standing with Superman and Cyborg and Wonder Woman. Look who you're standing with._

"The world needs them."

"Do you really think that, Damian? It's kinda like what your mother believed. You think she's right?" Drake stomps over to Damian's corner with a scowl. "'Cause let me tell you, she'd be so proud of you right now."

It's true, Damian realizes. This is everything his mother wanted. He's fighting to rid the world of scum, rule over them in the way his mother swore would make her beloved perfect. No mercy, no 'No Kill' policy. He's even murdered that orphaned interloper, Dick Grayson.

_You're not Robin anymore!_

It doesn't feel as good as his mother promised. "You're not," he observes of Drake, who remains conflicted and agitated. "Proud of me."

Not in the slightest. "My big brother is dead, and my little brother is disrespecting everything he stood for. But you never wanted me to be proud. You never wanted me at all."

_Stop telling me what to do!_

"What will you do?" And that answer is suddenly very important. What will Drake do about Damian, which side will he stand with in this war?

Drake runs a hand through his hair and sighs. It reminds Damian of Dick. "I don't know. But there's no Dick Grayson to come help me figure it out. Nightwing won't be swooping in to save the day. And that's a pretty big wake up call for me." Wearily, Drake shuffles back to the table and resumes drinking tea. "I'm going to think. Long and hard. And then I'm going to make my choice and accept the consequences."

"That's not an answer."

"That's more than anyone else is doing," Drake growls. "Everyone is betraying their own consciences and crying when the results turn out badly. I'm not going to have that moment. I refuse to react and follow blindly until I don't know what I stand for or what being a hero even means. Dick died a hero. He'd be disappointed if I lived as anything less."

_I'm not going to tell you to step aside. I know you won't._

"You don't think the rest of us are heroes?" After Superman and Wonder Woman stopped wars? Eliminated the Joker for good?

_Now that the Joker's gone, everything just feels safer, you know?_

Drake narrows his eyes. "You threw a weapon at your brother's head because you were mad. A kill shot, because he said something to tick you off. And now he's dead."

_There's a scream that can't be silenced..._

"You're no hero, Damian."

Vigilantes aren't the only ones to wear masks. Criminals do, too. What makes Robin so special? Damian always thought it was the justice he fought for. But there was no justice in Grayson's death.

"Maybe Superman has the right idea. Maybe some criminals deserve to die, and the only way to protect everyone is with an iron fist. But he's not a God, living above us. He's just a man who lost loved ones and is motivated by pain and rage as easily as the next guy. He doesn't get to decide the fate of the world. And if he's forgotten that, then he's no hero, either."

"You would prefer war over peace?"

"I'd prefer people make their own choices and drive their own destinies than a world of mindless puppets," Drake counters. "And if I'm going to worship a God, it's damn well going to be the real thing."

_You can't put yourself above us, Clark._

"He's not trying to be-"

"You're right. Because most religions believe in a God that allows them agency, for good or evil. Superman is stamping that whole free will into the ground. He's the only one who gets to decide anything."

_I'm so sick of all of you! You think you deserve help?_

"He's making us safe."

"Was Dick safe?" Drake snarls. "I'm not feeling so safe these days." To be honest, neither is Damian, anymore. But that's because Superman's plan is still in the beginning stages, right?

_After everyone you've hurt, you think society owes you freaks anything?_

"You spend too much time up there in the Watchtower and the world looks so small, doesn't it?" Drake shakes his head. "I probably should thank you, weird as that sounds. It always seemed like we'd all go out in blazes of glory. Especially once Bruce came back from the dead. Everything was larger than life, for all the danger, how could we die anywhere else but in a huge battle, against grand opponents, martyrs for the human race? Our deaths immortalized as symbols of hope or fear..."

_They should be too scared to pull the trigger. They should be too scared to hurt each other._

"But you reminded me. Reality isn't these big clashes of good and evil. There's not some cosmic rule that the good guys have to have a heroic, dignified death. You threw an object at your brother's head, and his neck broke. There's no poetry to it, but that's real life. One small act of violence is all it takes to kill someone."

_You keep aiming for that killer blow, you're trying to hurt me._

"When I'm angry and I feel like hurting someone, I'll think of Dick. Hopefully it'll keep me from doing something I regret."

_What did you do wrong?_

"I didn't mean to kill him."

"Doesn't matter. He's dead now. Just gone, and there's not going to be a statue of him in the square, or a grave covered in roses. No meaning. All because you threw a tantrum like a spoiled toddler. And it didn't solve a thing, did it?"

_You're trying to hurt me- Which I'm trying not to take personally, by the way—but it's not all about the body and head. Your opponent also has sticky-outy bits that are easier to reach._

"So, what happens now, Damian? It's not enough to be sorry, anyone can do that. You have to_ do_ something. Have to decide if you're a murderer, or a kid who screwed up."

Damian tries not to sigh. Or moan. Or wail. "To hear father talk, it's most definitely the former."

"Bruce doesn't get to decide. I don't even get to, though I've got some thoughts," came the dark reply. "This one's up to you."

_Not only does your opponent have sticky-outy bits, they also may have had some bad circumstances that led them to a point where you're fighting them. _

"I don't know." Drake crosses his arms over his chest, impatient, as if Damian were a small child.

Which is not that far from the truth. "The world is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. More people will die. Superman might even ask you to do the killing." Damian grew up killing, surrounded by death. So why does this trouble him now, when he's been pushing his father for this very course of action? "My advice? Figure yourself out. Because it's a little late to make a decision after the body hits the floor."

_Some criminals deserve a second chance._

But there would be no second chances. Not anymore. No last words, no dying message, no forgiveness, apologies or prodigal returns.

_You think you deserve help?_

"I still think Superman's right."

Drake clearly disagrees, but he keeps it to himself. "That's a fair opinion. He has some good points."

And still, it doesn't quell the turmoil. "I can't go home. I can't fight beside Father anymore." Drake snorts.

"After this? I'm surprised you'd want to. Even I'm not so sure. I might be more supportive of his platform, but Bruce..." He shakes his head. "Losing his parents turned him into the Batman. I'm a little scared to find out what this death turns him into."

There's blood on Damian's escrima sticks. Dried blood, now. And blood on his uniform. Some of which probably won't come out. He fought so many people in Arkham, he's lost track of who it all belongs to.

Grayson didn't bleed. He just died. Didn't even open the lenses of his mask.

"Are you going to take me into custody?" Damian asks Drake, knowing full well it won't happen. He's really asking why Drake is content to let Damian be, not seeking revenge.

Whatever the reasons, it's not blind forgiveness. "You should have some kind of hearing," the older boy says in a gruff voice. "Even if you're not found guilty, you should have to face up to what you did."

"And then get sent off to be 'rehabilitated', I suppose?" Damian hisses. He's not a murderer. Absolutely not.

But Drake looks at him with such pity in his eyes. "Do you think you're beyond hope? Or just beyond the law?"

_You see these? Each scar is a life. You have a scar now, too._

"I think there's a bigger fight out there," Damian declares, and watches Drake's eyes go cold. "More important than your petty grievances."

"Petty? _Fratricide?_ That must be some fight." He draws out the words, the sarcasm so heavy on his tongue, and Damian would have started crying if he'd ever stopped in the first place.

"Yes. It is." Peace on earth, that was the war they fought for.

His brother, if Damian can or wants to call him that, just sighs. "Well, if it can make Dick's death seem insignificant, then it must be a worthy cause, Damian." It's not what Damian expected. He expected more fighting. "But for me, my brother is not acceptable collateral damage. No brother is."

"I didn't come here to have you judge me, Drake!"

_Stop telling me what to do!_

"Yes you did," the older boy wearily replies. "I'm the only one who will." No one will talk about it. Even his father just left Damian in Arkham.

_We don't have time for this, Damian._

"Clark lost someone he loved, and now every criminal on earth has to pay. Even if the crime is just disagreeing with him. Bruce lost a son and he hides in his cave as if the rest of his children don't even exist. You and I have lost Dick." Drake straightens and looks his brother in the eye. "I'm going to take a moment of peace to bury him. What are you going to do?"

_What did you do?!_

The sky is darker than it should be. Maybe it's metaphorical, just a sensation, but it feels darker than it should, even for Gotham.

_Some criminals deserve second chances. Second chances are harder with severe brain damage._

Damian throws his hood over his head and leaps to the window. "I'm going to save the world. Whatever the cost."

_They deserve nothing._


End file.
